


Before the Dawn

by Muir_Wolf



Category: Revenge (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, References to Thoughts of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 19:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/pseuds/Muir_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Purpose is a hard thing to find, but she's handed hers on a silver platter.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Fire & Ice: a Revenge Ficathon](http://weasleytook.livejournal.com/435643.html) (go plaaay!) for the prompt _emily, i am done with my graceless heart, so tonight i'm gonna cut it out and then restart_

 

 

Everyone has a story they don't tell.

 

 

Amanda turns her hands into fists, clenches them tight until her fingernails dig into her palms, drawing little crescent moons of blood.

(She doesn't get to go outside at night. She sees the moon through a window she can't escape through.)

It's hard to look at something she doesn't get to have, so she learns young not to want. Her father, freedom, any sort of peace. She is David Clarke's daughter.

That didn't used to mean anything, and now it's all that left.

 

 

It's hard to hate the only person you ever loved.

She gets better at it.

 

 

In a lot of ways, she's the girl that survives.

It turns out that surviving isn't worth shit.

She lies in her bed and imagines stars she hasn't had the chance to see properly in years. There was a time when her dad would sit with her in the sand and tell her tall tales about the stars—lies and half truths and whatever it took to make her smile.

It's hard to love the only person you ever hated, but she gets better at that, too.

 

 

She remembers the ocean. The smell of it, the taste of it when a wave caught her off guard and she fell under it, coughing and spluttering as she resurfaced and pulled in a deep breath of air.

There's something soothing about the memory—of the idea of something so large and so uncontrollable and so untamed. It makes her feel small, but there's strength in being small and unnoticed.

(David Clarke's daughter never gets to pass by unseen.)

The waves crashing in lull her to sleep on restless nights, her hands fisted in the sheets, her breath shallow in her lungs.

(Sometimes she imagines sinking beneath the waves, her body limp. She always fights to the surface in the end.)

 

 

The day Nolan finds her is the day she's free. The day she's wanted and feared for as long as she can remember.

Purpose is a hard thing to find, but she's handed hers on a silver platter.

Duty is a gift, revenge an inheritance.

(The day before she walked free, she pressed her hands against the wall, as if she could find a way to get out, as if she could find a way to stay in.)

Nolan tries to deter her, but he's never been locked away from the stars. All the nights and all the dreams, but she's never yet let herself drown.

 

 

Emily Thorne keeps a lot of secrets. Secrets about who she is and her past and the way she knows people she's never met before.

This is the secret she doesn't remember she has to keep:

Hatred is a sort of love; love is a type of hate.

She kisses Daniel because she has to, because retribution tastes sweet on his lips, because her hand is steady and her aim is true.

She loves Jack because he was good when there was nothing else that was, hates him because he loves a name instead of a person.

 

 

(Everyone has a story they don't tell.

Nolan stands by her side, and she leans in a little to his warmth, but doesn't act on it.

She's lost everyone she's ever loved to hate, turned everyone she's hated into someone she pretends to love.

She needs a North Star.

She needs someone to set her course by.)

 

 

Somewhere, her father looks at her night sky and smiles.

 

 

_Finis_


End file.
